(Note: This article about the Union Iron Works , builders of the original Lyon, was first published in 1946 by noted railroad author and historian Gilbert Kneiss.)
Locomotives of The Union Iron Works
By Gilbert H. Kneiss
Railway and Locomotive Historical Society Bulletin No. 68
November of 1946
Copyright 1946
Reprinted with the permission of:
The Railway and Locomotive Historical Society
Ask a person devoted to locomotive history about the Irving Scott engines and the chances are he will meet you with a blank stare. Mention the Booth Locomotives, however, and he will recognize them at once as products of the Union Iron Works of San Francisco in its golden days. Yet without any disparagement toward Mr. H. J. Booth who was an able pioneer industrialist in his own right, the fact is that he had considerably less to do with the locomotives in question than did Irving Murray Scott. But let us start at the beginning, which is Peter Donahue.
In 1849 almost everyone in San Francisco wanted to go and dig for gold. Few were interested in making the necessary tools to do the digging. Peter Donahue had tried digging without success so he and his brothers opened a small forge under a tent and named it the Union Iron Works.
It was a pretty crude affair. Their furnace was the smoke-stack of a dismantled steamer, their blast produced by two blacksmiths’ bellows. Nevertheless, it was the “best in the west” and business boomed.
Donahue and his brothers were well qualified to found San Francisco’s first iron works. Glasgow born, they had spent their younger childhood days toiling in the horrible sweatshops of that period. Peter was only eleven in 1833 when the family sailed for America. A few years later he was apprenticed to the Union Iron Works of Paterson, New Jersey as a student machinist. His two brothers were bound to the same concern, James learning boiler making and Michael becoming a molder. It was this firm’s name which they later applied to their own enterprise.
In 1845 Peter was employed on the construction of a gunboat for Peru and sailed aboard her on her maiden voyage to South America. There he might have stayed but for the cry of “Gold” that echoed out of California and changed so many men’s lives. The fall of ’49 found him in San Francisco welcoming two “tenderfeet” --his brothers.
The tent was soon outgrown and a new location found in “Happy Valley” on the site of the present Bridge Railway Terminal. By 1856 Peter Donahue had bought out his two brothers’ interests and erected a substantial brick foundry and machine shop.
However, the days when business rushed in of its own accord passed. Competition increased. Donahue gradually interested himself in other matters which took more and more of his time. The Union Iron Works began to languish.
The decline was most distasteful to Irving Scott, Donahue’s draftsman. This young Quaker had made the long journey to California with high hopes of a successful career in his profession of mechanical engineering. He had prepared himself well. Born Christmas Day, 1837 at Hebron Mills, he had gone to work at seventeen in the plant of Obed Hussey , inventor of the reaping machine. After three years there he switched to the Murray & Hazelton Iron Works in Baltimore. Soon he was in charge of stationary boiler and fire engine production. And in his spare time he studied drafting. In 1860 the chance had come to go with Donahue in California and he had eagerly grasped it. But the way things were going now, he saw no future in the Union Iron Works.
The Miners’ Foundry, two blocks down First Street, on the other hand was booming. Quartz mining machinery was its specialty and the Comstock Lode offered and insatiable market. Scott became the Miners’ Foundry draftsman in 1862. He found it unique among industrial organizations of that day. All twenty of the skilled workmen were full partners with the actual owners of the plant. After the owners had received their dividends at a fixed rate the balance of the year’s profits were divided among the workmen proportionately to their salaries.
But in another year Scott was back at the Union Iron Works. Peter Donahue had brought H. J. Booth into the company to put it back on its feet. Booth had been a partner in the Marysville Foundry, on of the largest in the West and Scott thought, on the basis of past performance, that he would have the Works Humming again in short order.
But two years under the new firm name of Donahue, Booth & Company brought no improvement. Peter Donahue, disgusted, retired from active management in the firm in 1865 and Booth brought in George W. Prescott who had been his partner in the Marysville Foundry. And now Irving Scott’s ability was rewarded with a full partnership and the job of general manager. Now indeed he had the opportunity for which he had come west.
As H. J. Booth & Company the Union Iron Works now took on a new lease on life. The working force was increased to 300 men and new machine tools installed. Organization and system were introduced for the first time. Each man was given a brass check with his number on it. When he reported for work in the morning he hung it on a corresponding peg, and from the missing tags it could be seen at a glance who was absent or tardy. On returning from lunch at one o’clock the men retrieved their tags--then those which still hung on their pegs when the whistle blew showed the offenders.
A regular apprentice system was installed, boys of seventeen being bound in for a four year course. They received four dollars a week during the first year and were stepped up to ten dollars by graduation. Usually they worked out better than experienced workmen from the East. They were proud of the Union Iron Works--there was a good feeling among all hands. Irving Scott was a good manager.
One of the outside interests which had diverted Peter Donahue’s attention from the Works was the San Francisco & San Jose Railroad. This line had been opened for service as far as Mayfield in 1863 and completed to San Jose the following year. Motive power consisted of two Norris locomotives and one Mason. Good enough engines for the times, they had been a disappointment on the heavy grade out of San Francisco. Donahue and Scott saw no reason why the Union Iron Works couldn’t build them as well or better.
So Irving Scott, with little if any direct railroad experience behind him, set out to design a superior locomotive. He was familiar with steam from the fire engines and stationary boilers he had designed in Baltimore. And although there is no evidence, it would indeed be strange if such a man had not spent many inquisitive hours in the B. & O. shops nearby.
At any rate, when the designs lay completed on Scott’s drafting board they looked good. The San Jose road ordered two locomotives built from them and the Sacramento Valley Railroad signed up for a pair as well. Construction was started.
There was a good bit of excitement in San Francisco about this venture. William Ralston was in the midst of starting his many projects-all designed to make California industrially independent of the East. There was a widespread enthusiasm about this conception of things and the Union Iron Works was going right along with the spirit of the times. No locomotives had heretofore been built in California, with the exception of a couple of tea-kettles assembled for suburban service. These would be full size giants of the rails--equal to anything the world had seen.
There was, accordingly, a sizable crowd on hand August 1, 1865 when the “California,” first completed of Scott’s locomotives left the Works. Twenty strong dray horses dragged her through the city streets some eight or ten blocks to the railroad. It was not an easy journey. Many times the heavy engine sank to the axles in the soft pavement and hydraulic jacks were called upon to lift her out and on her way. The delighted crowd which included most of the small boys in town followed, shouting bits of unappreciated advice to the perspiring teamsters. Finally the locomotive was deposited solidly on the rails at Townsend Street.
A few days later the “California” was to prove her mettle. With utter confidence in their handiwork, Irving Scott and his associates had invited 150 guests to a trial trip. Governor Stanford, who would need many engines for his Central Pacific was among them. Steaming proudly, the untried engine bore close scrutiny and listened to approving comment as the party gathered.
The shining locomotive and her builders had full right to their pride. The “California” stood sixteen feet tall to the top of her balloon stack and from pilot tip to tender drawbar she measured 42 feet. Of the standard American 4-4-0 type, her 60 inch drivers promised speed. Wooded and watered, she weighed 46 tons and her lines, while distinctive, equaled in proportion and gracefulness the finest output of the East. And she had cost less than an eastern engine plus the freight.
With the guests in four San Francisco built coaches, the “California” pulled away from the depot at 10:40. Running easily along Brannan Street and through the Mission, she hit the steep grade out of town. Her throttle a few notches wider, she conquered it without losing speed. Back in the coaches the guests looked at each other in amazement. The summit grade had always been a severe trial to the Norris engines.
At Twin Trees, now Palo Alto, the excursionists picnicked, danced, and listened to complimentary speeches about the “California.” Booth responded for the Works and it was time to start the homeward journey. Between Twin Trees and San Mateo the train ran at 67 miles an hours. It was a speed never before experienced west of the Rocky Mountains. The “California” was, most definitely a success.
A few weeks later her sister engine “Atlantic” joined her on the San Jose road. The Sacramento Valley Railroad, however, had passed to the Central Pacific control and its projected Placerville and Washoe extension was an exploded dream. The two locomotives the S. V. had ordered from the Union Iron Works were intended for the Placerville-Virginia City run and now no engine would ever make that journey. The Central Pacific cancelled the order for one engine on which work had not yet begun, but accepted the other, U.I.W. No. 3. “A. A. Sargent” they named her, after the California congressman who had introduced the Pacific Railway bill.
With three successful American 4-4-0’s in service on two first class railroads the Union Iron Works was fairly launched as a locomotive builder. However, the next orders which came in were for an entirely different type of engine. Irving Scott got out his drafting instruments again.
Some forty miles east of San Francisco a flourishing coal mining community had grown up on the north slope of Mount Diablo. The vein was promising and several mines were in operation. Three parallel railroads were being constructed to carry the coal down to the San Joaquin River about five miles away. Here it would be loaded on river steamers for San Francisco and other points. These railroads were known respectively as the Antioch Railroad, The Pittsburg Railroad, and the Black Diamond Railroad. They all had the same general characteristics; a straight gentle slope leaving the river bank but running into steeper and steeper grades with tortuous curves as the mines were approached. Maximum grades were more than 5%.
They would be difficult roads to work despite the shortness of the run. What was needed was maximum power for heavy hauling of mine supplies uphill without much concern for economy of operation as the native coal was to be used for fuel.
To handle this assignment Irving Scott designed a class of six-coupled tank engines with short boilers and large tubes. They had 86 tubes, 2 1/4 inches in diameter and 7 feet long. The total heating surface was 421 square feet. Cylinders were 14 by 18 inches and the engines were operated at less than 100 pounds pressure. Drivers were 36 inches in diameter, the center pair being blind.
During a test run only 2.42 pounds of water were evaporated per pound of coal due to the short wide tubes and the sharp blast required. Nevertheless they were well adapted to the job and attracted notice as far away as London, where they were written up in Engineering. Five of the class were built during 1866 and 67, three for the Pittsburg Railroad and two for the Black Diamond line. Motive power for the third road, the Antioch Railroad, was built by Marschuetts & Cantrell, a small San Francisco foundry.
During this period another locomotive left the Union Iron Works for the San Francisco & San Jose, an 0-4-0 switcher named “Union.” This engine was particularly designed for very sharp curves, her wheelbase being only 6 feet 4 1/2 inches. She had cylinders 16 by 18 inches, 48 inch drivers, and operated at 120 pounds steam pressure.
In 1869 another 4-4-0 was turned out for the California Pacific and then Booth secured a contract to furnish part of the initial motive power for the Virginia & Truckee Railroad. This job called for another design from the drawing board of Irving Scott. The V. & T. would be a rough and crooked line and the booming mines of the Comstock Lode meant constant tonnage hauling. From Virginia to Carson City the line was a succession of hairpin curves with radii running down to 120 feet and there was a constant grade of over 2% for the entire 24 miles.
Good steaming and maximum tractive effort were essential. Scott’s design to cope with these conditions was a 30 ton mogul, nearly all of whose weight was carried on the drivers. The leading wheels were connected to a Bissell truck, the forward center of which was in turn connected to a swing beam, enabling the engine to follow the curves easily and relieving the flanges of the front drivers. The total wheelbase was 16 feet, the center pair of drivers being blind. Cylinders were 14 by 24 inches. There were 170 2-inch tubes and the total heating surface was 960 square feet. Wood was the fuel.
Three of these locomotives were built and christened respectively “Lyon,” “Ormsby” and “Storey” after the Nevada counties through which they were designed to work. They were run up to Reno on the Central Pacific under their own steam and there their rods were disconnected, tenders uncoupled, and all wheels fitted with broad extra tires o protect their flanges. Thus equipped, ten yoke of oxen dragged each one up hill and down dale, fording creeks as they found them, away to Carson City.
In the new shops of the V, & T. they were restored to normal. Soon they were working on construction trains and later hauling heavy loads of ore or mine timbers around the screeching curves that hardly ever had time to cool off between the constant trains.
The Virginia & Truckee Railroad developed into a heavy locomotive purchaser for a short line but it bought no more engines from the Union Iron Works. The reason why is not apparent as the three it had were all very successful machines. Two wore themselves out on the V. & T. and were finally scrapped, but the “Storey” had a varied and long career.
In 1881 she was sold to A. Onderdonck, manager for D. O. Mills & Company on the British Columbia section of the Canadian Pacific construction. When the work was done she was turned over to the Canadian Government with the road and the rest of the contractor’s rolling stock. However, when the government in turn delivered the road to the Canadian Pacific Railway Company it retained title to the locomotives and cars. In 1887 the “Storey,” now known as “Yale,” was sent to the Intercolonial Railway in Nova Scotia and was still puffing around in 1920 as Canadian National #7082.
But to get back to Irving Scott and the Union Iron Works. Peter Donahue was now building another railroad, the San Francisco & North Pacific. From Tiburon, across the Bay, the new road would run north through prosperous farm and dairy country into the redwood belt. What was more natural than for the “Donahue Line,” as it began to be known, to buy its motive power from the Works that its owner had founded and in which he still maintained a substantial interest?
Three locomotives were built for the S. F. & N. P. in 1870--the “J. G. Downey,” “W. C. Ralston,” and “Geyser.” In 1873 another, the “Santa Rosa” was turned out. Finally, to jump ahead a bit, Irving Scott’s last engine, the Ukiah” was delivered to the Donahue line in 1882. All five were 4-4-0’s very much like the original “California” with the refinements that experience had indicated.
Thus by 1873 the Union Iron Works had turned out seventeen locomotives in eight years. Not an impressive figure when compared with Eastern builders, but still very respectable for remote San Francisco. The product was good and it was accepted. There seemed every reason to expect the Union Iron Works to become an important locomotive manufacturer. To quote from its 1873 “Circular and Pattern List”:
“It may well be doubted if there is any branch of the manufacturing of machinery
which imposes greater responsibility upon the builder and at the same time taxes his
mechanical skill to a greater degree than the construction of locomotives. Strength,
durability, speed, perfect proportions and beauty are demanded at his hands. Upon
a single beam, bolt, tie or spring may hang the lives of a multitude. This branch of
business on the Pacific Coast has, thus far, been entrusted almost or quite entirely to
ourselves and it is with pride that we point to the results of our labors, confident that no
country produces better. With the desire to produce a first class engine we have
corrected every defect as fast as circumstances would allow and added all the
improvements that have stood the test of usage. We are now prepared to furnish the
following sizes as cheaply and of as good a quality as can be obtained elsewhere.”
Certainly a modest, sincere sales talk and one that arouses confidence by its lack of extravagant claims. The “following sizes” were essentially a resume of the engines turned out and were listed as follows:
“1. Our passenger engine (4-4-0). We have patterns for this style
of 14 inch cylinder diameter and 22 inch stroke and 15x22 with
five foot driving wheels each.
“2. A heavier engine (4-4-0) 16x24. Five foot drivers. Freight or
passenger.
“3. Our heavy freight engine (2-6-0). Designed for grades of 116
feet per mile and short curves. Has six-coupled wheels and
only enough weight on truck to take side wear off flanges of
forward drivers. Cylinders 16x24. Drivers four feet. Truck
wheels 26 inches. Also have patterns 14x24 and 40 inch drivers.
“4. Our freight engine designed for drawing load of 100,000 pounds
beside itself up grades of 300 feet per mile (0-6-0T) or four
wheel tender). Cylinders 14x18, drivers 36 inches. Designed for
Mount Diablo Coal Mines where they are now running to the
satisfaction of the Pittsburg and Black Diamond Railroad companies.
“5. Our shifting engine (0-4-0) 14x18. Drivers four feet.
“6. Fairlie engine and narrow gauge (0-4-0-0-4-0). Cylinders
8 1/12x13. Drivers 39 inches.
No evidence has come to light that any Fairlie engines were actually constructed. All of the other types, however, were as we have seen, in successful operation. It therefore becomes difficult to understand why, with this encouraging start and responsible standing, the Union Iron Works apparently built no more locomotives for almost a decade. (Two serial numbers, 18 and 19, I have been unable to account for, and they may have been produced in this period. They may have been Fairlies too.) Were the Baldwin and the Mason salesmen too energetic, romping away with all the orders or was Irving Scott leaning too heavily toward shipbuilding to retain his interest in locomotives?
In June 1875 the firm changed again. H. J. Booth retired and the partnership became Prescott, Scott & Company. At last Irving Scott was recognized in the firm name. Though no locomotives were being turned out the Union Iron Works prospered with other business. Six hundred men were now employed. Orders were coming in from the navies of the world for marine engines and it began to be evident that with a new location on the shore of the Bay a great shipbuilding industry could be developed.
There was another short intense flurry of locomotive building in 1881 and 82. Eleven engines were built in those two years, mostly small narrow gauge jobs for lumber and mining roads. Notable among the engines produced in this latter period were a 5 foot 8 1/2 inch gauge 4-4-0 for the Gualala Railroad, a redwood line in northern California, and two very snappy little narrow gauge Americans for the new Ferrocarril de Acajutla a Sonsonate in the republic of El Salvador. In spite of their neat lines a contemporary Salvadoran newspaper dismisses them as “American engines with little power and constantly requiring repairs.” Research would probably disclose that the disparaging sheet was owned by British capital interested in seeing that Central American governments bought English locomotives, as one of the pair, the “Francisco Camacho” remained in active service until 1920.
The earlier Union Iron Works engines carried a very elaborate builder’s plate in the form of a large Union shield between the drivers. In addition they bore a small plate on the valve chest with the words “H. J. Booth & Co.” and the serial number. After the firm changed in 1875 a small round plate on the smoke box with “Prescott, Scott & Co., San Francisco, Builders,” the year and serial number was substituted.
But now the locomotive building days of the Union Iron works were coming to an end. Two years before, Irving Scott had toured the world, visiting and carefully inspecting every shipbuilding plant of any consequence. The Works had always been close to the sea. The first job turned out in Peter Donahue’s tent back in 1859 was a ship’s propeller bearing. The plant had built the engines for the sloop of war “Saginaw” built of California laurel during the Civil War. It had likewise assembled the monitor “Comanche” sent by President Lincoln to keep the Confederated Navy out of San Francisco Bay. But from now on it would build ships as well as power them.
In April 1883 construction started on the new Works on the shores of Potrero Point. Almost exclusively it would be a ship-building plant and thanks to the ideas picked up by Scott in his travels, one that was unexcelled in Europe or America. Sleek Pacific liners and grim ships of war would take form within its walls--but no more locomotives. The last one had been delivered from the old plant just before the move was made. Appropriately enough, it was the “Ukiah” for Peter Donahue’s San Francisco & North Pacific.
At this late date there is little on which to base an accurate appraisal of the quality of Scott’s locomotives. We know in general that they enjoyed a good reputation and that they were considered at least the equal of their contemporaries. In addition we find the following comparison wiht other makes in the 1890 annual report of the San Francisco & North Pacific Railway. This road then owned eighteen locomotives of which five were products of the Union Iron Works.
From this table we see that the Booth or Union Iron Works locomotives operated at the lowest cost per mile with the exception of the solitary Norris engine. Furthermore, except for the Norris and the one Baldwin, the annual cost of repairs was the lowest of the group. Too much can not be guaranteed from such a compilation, yet what is shown is entirely favorable to the San Francisco Built locomotives.
The Union Iron Works lived and grew and the Potrero Point plant, now a part of the Bethlehem Shipbuilding Corporation, is today still turning out ships to help with the present war. Without detracting in any way from the honors due Peter Donahue, the pioneer founder; H. J. Booth; George Prescott and the others; Irving M. Scott deserves a lion’s share of the credit for the sturdy growth and permanence of the enterprise. Designer of locomotives, builder of battleships and cruisers, shrewd business manager of a gigantic plant, he still found time to qualify in oratory, writing and general civic welfare. Undoubtedly he ranks as one of the great characters in the history of building the West. His locomotives, admittedly one of his minor achievements, will always be remembered as graceful, dependable, efficient machines that had their romantic place in that colorful history.
Note: The records of the Union Iron Works, as well as most of the other normal sources of primary material for an article of this kind, were destroyed in the San Francisco fire of 1906. I hope this fact will be kindly taken into consideration in connection with it shortcomings.
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The Railway & Locomotive Historical Society, Inc.
Bulletin No. 68
Copyright 1946
